


On the Bright Side

by sinverguenza



Category: Alice (2009)
Genre: F/M, Het
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-29
Updated: 2010-02-03
Packaged: 2017-11-14 14:07:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/516022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinverguenza/pseuds/sinverguenza
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Their first kiss is all release, the joy of breathless <i>knowing</i> - that he’s here, that he wants her, that he came for her, that he kissed her in front of her mother and a mirror, in front of god and the ghosts that live between them.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended. 
> 
> Originally posted in 2010, migrating some of my fic over here.

\--------

_He is six years old and he reads in bed at night, small press books that his mother gives him. Hand drawn cartoons, the dark-eyed outlines of a girl called Alice, someone who will one day set things right._

_His mother kisses him goodnight, leaves for another meeting with the resistance. His bed is small and the room is cold. He reads by candlelight._

_His fingers touch the face of the girl in the book. He touches her chin, her lips, and he wonders._

\-----

Their first kiss is all release, the joy of breathless _knowing_ \- that he’s here, that he wants her, that he came for her, that he kissed her in front of her mother and a mirror, in front of god and the ghosts that still live between them. 

But after such heady enlightenment came confusion. This…thing that exists between them is clunky and halted, like when they said goodbye in Wonderland. Lost moments and metaphors, words that go unspoken. It makes Alice feel like a very young teen, awkward and not knowing where to place her hands during her first slow dance.

Alice takes comfort in logistics. She lives with her mother, and he doesn’t have a place to stay. So she jimmies the lock on Jack’s place with a hairpin, an old trick from junior high that has served her well. 

“It’s a bit strange being here,” says Hatter. He looks out of place among the fine wood furniture, the soft Oriental rugs that cover the floor. 

“It’s different from Wonderland.” She stands against the fireplace in the corner of Jack’s living room and bends her hairpin, back and forth. 

“No-no I know,” he says. I just meant…I meant, it’s weird. With his stuff. In his place.”

“He wouldn’t mind,” says Alice. “Will you be comfortable here?”

He adjusts his hat, pushes it back so that he can run his fingers through the front of his hair – a nervous habit, she will find. “Oh, yeah. This place is swank. Not to my tastes but it’ll do.” Hatter picks up a small box from the coffee table. He has thin fingers. He turns the box in his hands. 

She can tell that it is familiar to him, but she doesn’t ask about it. Instead she nods, and keeps that nervous half-smile on her lips as she waits for his feint. It never comes. She hugs him, awkwardly, as she leaves. She feels him bend, but it’s too late. She wants to kiss him but, for some reason, she can’t force herself to lift her face.

“Goodnight,” she says quietly, as she slips out of his apartment.

Her face is warm as she walks in darkness back to her home. She tells herself that this will get better. It won’t always be this awkward. It won’t always be this hard.

\------

How do you thank someone for leaving their entire _life_ behind them, and leaving it all just for you? How can she tell him that she’s glad and grateful?

In Alice’s case, she finds that she cannot. She recites the words in her head as she tries to sleep. _Thank you for coming. I wanted you to come. I was hoping you would come. I hope you don’t regret it. I want you to be happy here. How can I make you happy?_

But she can’t speak them. Her parents put her in karate lessons when she was a child, hoping that she might gain some confidence, the ability to speak her mind. It worked, to some extent. When she has a problem, she knows how to speak. On the mat she is a goddess. In the coffee shop around the corner from his place, she is still unsure.

“Have a good day?” He meets her after work at their favorite table in a small corner by the barista station. She sips from her cup slowly and watches the raindrops soak into the brim of his hat.

She smiles. “I did. And you?” She has no idea what he does during the waking hours. 

He reaches his hand across the table, his pale palm faced upward. She slides her fingers over it. He smiles and holds her hand, his fingers curling around her wrists.

These are small movements, small steps forward.

\-----

It’s hard to find a job these days, and at first she worries for him. She tries to slip him a few dollars, and he just looks at her like she’s crazy.

“That’s real sweet of you, but I’ve got things all tied up. You save your bits for yourself, Alice. Buy lovely things.” He holds her hand as they walk along the boulevard, and she finds herself leaning into him. Not for any romantic reasons. She’s just thinking hard.

Jack paid the rent on his place four months forward. She hopes that something will turn up before then.

\-----

There’s no nasty nicknames for girls that choose to live at home. _Woman-child_ , she thinks, but her mother never mentioned Alice getting her own place, never implied that it was time for her to move on to bigger and better things. She was never wild. She never wanted to party. What was the attraction? Where was the fun?

Her mother doesn’t judge, has always been too kind for her own good. Alice knows that her mother wouldn’t think poorly of her for staying with him overnight. But for some reason she can’t bear the thought of her mother noticing an empty bed in her apartment. 

What’s more is that he doesn’t ask her to stay. She sits next to him on the green velvet divan in his living room, where they talk for awhile, kiss for awhile, but they don’t make love.

\-----

He is the sort of man that can talk anyone into anything. He gets a job promoting one of the late-night, downtown clubs, the ones with walls covered in paper and ink, numbers scrawled in lipstick. For all of the rickety stairwells and floppy furniture, Hatter’s club is inhabited by the incredibly chic. He makes fast friends with the owner named Gert, who pays him under the table without being asked.

“I think I like it here. I think I’m fitting in.” He seems excited by the job, the light of his smile gone into his eyes as he tells her all about it.

She thinks about contacts – how he has none, and she wonders how he got the job. But she knows that, as her mother says, “He’s got a personality that just won’t quit.” Alice has seen the way he can convince people of anything, _anything_. But all she says is, “I’m happy for you,” and she means it sincerely. 

She thinks about her own daytime schedule, about how they will find quiet moments for coffee and walks. She worries about the drugs. She doesn’t let herself think about the people there – the long-legged blondes, the boys with thin hips and pouting lips.

\-----

One of the parents at the dojo screams at her after class one day – unleashes an inappropriate amount of frustration on Alice for no reason at all.

_“Jesus _Christ_ you people at this place can’t get anything straight! I already paid last month? Are you stupid? Are you stupid or something?”_

Alice can speak up to the angry mom just fine. She keeps her temper under check, her calm, cool face in a pleasant expression. After, she is shaking, though, and when she meets him for coffee, he asks her if everything is okay. She wants to complain about it. She wants to replay the conversation for him using silly voices. She wants him to tell her that that lady was an idiot, that everything is going to be fine.

She just nods. For some reason, she cannot tell him about the woman at the dojo. For some reason, she cannot open up to him. 

He kisses her goodbye. He tastes like coffee and cream. He kisses her much as he always does – the soft pressure of his hands on her waist, but plenty of space between them. Passionately chaste kisses. Kisses that warm her from the inside out, and end with a friendly ‘goodbye, then.’

His kiss is all the comfort she lets herself have.

\-----

He’s been here for less than a month, and Alice wonders if he even remembers a time when he didn’t belong. He’s made friends so quickly. People stop him on the street – club kids, industry mucky mucks, beautiful people. They all know David, _Hatter_ , they call him. He doesn’t introduce her. They, all of them, look right past her. They probably think she’s his sister. She feels drab in her sweater set. He is flamboyant as ever in his skinny jeans and leather jackets, crisp dress shirts, artfully torn tour tees from bands that he is quickly learning.

This girl has shining, dark red hair that reminds Alice of candy. “Hatter!” she cries out, dashes across the busy street toward him.

“Liss,” he says, and offers his cheek when the girl leans over to him. “How’s tricks?”

“Where the hell have you been? We missed you last Friday at Sadique’s! Things got a bit boring without you,” says the girl, but her long-lashed eyes say different.

Friday was exhibition day for Alice’s 6-8 group. Hatter had helped her set up chairs in the dojo and then taken them down after the proud parents had left. Why hadn’t he said anything? He could have skipped her stupid exhibition.

“I had something else going on. Damn, sorry to have missed it,” says Hatter. Hatter, David, _her Hatter_. She is losing him, can feel him slipping through her fingers like dust.

Alice feels like the driest dirt in a garden of roses. 

\-----

Sex. She’s done it twice. Not with two people – she’s had sex exactly two times. Never with Jack, though she had been thinking about it. Poor, unsatisfying experiences in her teenage years led to a years long dry spell, brought on mostly by her focus on her work and searching for her father. 

She thinks about having sex with Hatter. She thought about it the day he came back. She’d wanted to stay with him that night, but her own fears, the inconvenience of her living situation, the impropriety of following a first kiss with a hard screw had all convinced her not to. And, of course, he’d never asked her to stay.

He seems to be a sexual being. When they kiss on his couch, sometimes his warm hand finds the small of her back, his fingers hovering just barely over the soft skin that lives there.

In these moments she concentrates on the feelings. She feels him against her. She feels his eyes on her, the way his lips slide down the curve of her neck and pool in her collarbone. She feels the waving front of his hair, the tender rough of his jaw, the way he breather harder if she bites down gently on his neck.

She concentrates on the feelings because all she _really_ wants to do is speak. It feels like the words are burning her from inside out. They are dying to be said, but she doesn’t know how to say them. _Thank you for coming. I wanted you to come. I was hoping you would come. I love you so much._

\-----

The lease on Jack’s apartment is up. Hatter sweet talks the landlady with a bright pot of African violets and his natural good humor. He takes over the lease and keeps Jack’s deposit on. Hatter swears that Jack is his cousin. There are no questions asked.

“Guess I won’t be out on my tail next week,” he tells her with a grin, and that smile, that _smile_ is enough to break her heart if she let it. “I wasn’t looking forward to having to take a taxi to your flat.”

“I’m glad.” His hands are dusty still from the potting soil. She entwines her fingers in his. “I really am, Hatter.” She smiles up at him. 

And somehow it’s all very serious all of the sudden. He’s not returning her smile. He’s just looking at her with some expression that she can’t decipher. He sticks his chin out and looks at her, hard, like he’s trying to solve her, like she’s a particularly difficult riddle. 

But then he smiles back at her and asks her if she’s hungry, because he’s found a ripping new place for sushi and he wants to take her. That quiet moment happens so fast and after a few minutes, she’s wondering if it even happened at all.

\-----

They don’t communicate well. That much hasn’t changed, despite her hopes on the first day. And why should it? Even in Wonderland they had trouble getting their points across. They argued over every plan. They did not trust each other. They did not understand each other.

There is a new nagging worry in the back of her mind, and it joins the hundreds that live there. This one whispers that he’d just needed a place to start over. That here, in her world, was just as good as any. That she is a convenient bonus, but not the reason for the transition. That someday he might—he might--

“I’ve told you, I’m sorry that I can’t be here over Christmas.” The look in his eyes shows regret, but she knows that he has already packed his bags. “I’ve got to follow the money man. Gert is the money man, and the money man says that I need get my arse to Wexborough and start promoting their New Years party.”

She nods from one of the new steel stools at his breakfast bar. He’s moved most of Jack’s stuff into a storage space downtown. The apartment looks more like his old home now – metal and glass, bright lights and barren floors. She asked him for Jack’s Oriental rug before he could throw it out, and he’d shrugged and helped her fit it into a cab. 

“Look, I truly am sorry, Alice.” He slides onto the stool next to her and lays two slim fingers on her arm. “It can’t be helped. Can we have dinner together on Christmas Eve, though? Early? I’ve got to catch the train at seven.”

“Alright.” She feels so quiet around him, like there’s nothing to say anymore.

\-----

She can’t think of anything to buy him that he can’t buy himself, so she brings a bag full of assorted goodies to get him through a week in Wexborough. A book for the train, a gift certificate to a nice restaurant. Mittens. Dark chocolate, which she knows he’s got a thing for. He lays each of her gifts out on the table in the restaurant. 

He seems delighted most by the mittens. He puts them on and then starts to eat his meal. Alice laughs and leans over to pull it off. “You’ll get them dirty. Silly.” She folds them just so, then pushes them back across the table toward him.

He gives her one of those crooked grins and reaches into his pocket. Whatever he has for her is wrapped in newspaper, a crumpled ball of it. 

It’s heavy, and when she peels back yesterday’s travel section she sees a small pair of pearl earrings. They are perfect and round, blue-sheened baubles that catch the light of the candles from their table and glow in her hand. 

“Oysters,” she says softly. When she sees then she thinks of the cruel Queen. Of being chased for the emotions that lived in her body. The way her father grabbed her, spun her body away from his killing shot. She thinks about the bright colors of tea, bought and paid for with her father’s blood. She wonders if this is Hatter’s subtle sign. She’s being silly and stupid, she knows, but she can’t help it.

At first he seems happy at her tears, but one look in her eyes set his whole body rigid. “What is it?” he asks her urgently. 

“Nothing. They’re lovely.” She sniffs loudly and shoves the newspaper deeply into the pocket of her dress. He tries to ask her again, but she changes the subject until, blessedly, he stops.

She rides with him to the train station. He hugs her before getting on, but doesn’t lower his lips for a kiss. Everything is wrong. Everything feels off and wrong and she worries it will always _be like this_ between them. Silence and misunderstandings. The fear that someday he will just leave down some alley, through a mirror somewhere and be gone.

She slips the pearls into his coat pocket as he pulls away.


	2. Chapter 2

\--------

Alice does not cry, even though she thinks that it’s possible that this is all over. He never called from Wexborough, no email to let her know that he arrived safely. No bright voice on the end of her phone wishing her a Happy Christmas.

She eats roast lamb on Christmas day with her mother. Her mother asks after Hatter. 

“Silly boy. He had to run off during your first Christmas together?”

Alice stuffs the rest of her roll into her mouth, like a child. “It couldn’t be helped,” she says. And then she jumps up and begins doing the dishes. Distractions. That’s what her life is about these days.

\-----

It’s near dusk when she hears her mother’s voice, calling her name. Alice is in her room with the door shut. “Phone, dear,” she says. “It sounds urgent.”

Alice thinks of Hatter, and flies over the smooth tile of her mother’s apartment.

She gives no formal salutation when she lifts the phone to her ear. “What is it?”

“Alice? Is this Alice?” The voice is that of an older man’s, deep and tinged with some Germanic home of long ago.

“Yes.”

“This is Gert. I’m David’s boss at—“

“Yes, yes!” She knows all that. “Is he okay?”

“Well, it’s really quite out of character for him, and I frankly don’t know what to think. I would probably not have bothered, but—“

“Look, shut up,” she says pertly. “Just tell me, is Hatter okay? Is he harmed or lost?”

“No,” says Gert, and he sounds irritated. “He got roaring drunk late last night and for the better part of the today as well. He’s been sick all afternoon, and he’s been asking for you since midnight yesterday.” 

She scribbles directions on an envelope and tosses a few clothes into her bag. It’s 4 hours by train to Wexborough, but less than half that if she takes her mother’s car.

\-----

The hotel is beautifully modern, with white marble and leather sofas. Alice notices nothing as she heads straight for the front desk, her hair flying loose behind her.

Apparently Gert warned the bored girl at the front, and she is handed a key and a room number. Alice presses her palms hard against the bars in the elevator, wills the small box to move to the 12th floor more quickly. She pleads for height, something that she never thought would happen.

Room 712 is a suite, clearly, but when she opens it all she sees is mess. The couch is rumpled, the drapes haphazardly pulled shut. The flat screen shows a news station, the volume muted. It smells like must and stale air.

“Hatter?” She drops her bag at her feet. No one answers.

She heads for the nearest door she sees. The room is dark. She feels for a switch on the wall and flips it.

It’s a bedroom, relatively tidy compared to the one she just left. The bed is large and still made. He is lying in the middle of it in a pair of dark slacks and no shirt. His eyes are closed.

He groans. “Oh, Christ,” he says, and he throws his arms over his eyes. “Turn off the light, Gert!”

“No,” she says.

He sits up and says, “Alice!” with breath in his voice.

For a moment she just looks at him – unshaved face, hair still flipped from the hat at his side.

“What are you doing here?” he asks her. He runs his fingers through his hair and stands up from the bed. 

“Gert called,” she says, as he slips a thin, white undershirt over his head. “He said you were sick.”

He shakes his head. “I’m not ill. Damn it.” He winces. “Just…recovering from last night. I imbibed, shall we say, a bit too much.”

The unfairness of it pushes against her ribs. “Drinking? Is that why we couldn’t have Christmas together? You wanted to come to some hotel and get plastered with your boss?”

He rubs his face and sits in a large leather chaise, doesn’t respond.

“If you want to get away from me that bad, I wish you’d just say”. She hates that her voice breaks in the middle.

He looks up at her, his eyes filled with dark anger. “Really. I should be blaming you, it’s your fault anyway.”

“My fault?”

“Yes!” He digs in the pocket of his slacks and pulls out the pearls. “What are you playing at, putting these in my pocket? Not very subtle, Alice.”

“I could say the same to you,” she says. “Why would you give me pearls?”

He seems incredulous. “It’s Christmas, isn’t it? I know I’m not totally up to speed with this place, but I’m pretty sure gifts for me girlfriend are appropriate.”

“Not pearls,” she says, and there are tears in her eyes. She means to say more to him, to _make him understand_ , but she’s choking back sobs and she feels her chest heaving.

He’s off of the chaise and walking toward her. She steps away from him when his hands reach for her. She sees the anger that sweeps through his body then, and the reality of it frightens her. She’s never seen him direct any sort of annoyance toward her. He has saved that emotion for other people, and now she’s terrified, so terrified that she’s upset him. When he speaks it is frustrated, his voice raised. “Dammit, Alice! I’m trying here, and you won’t speak a word to me!”

She doesn’t speak, she can’t speak, she can’t say what she wants to say around him. It all closes up inside of her, and its just easier to keep it in than it is to slog it out. She thinks about the way that he kisses her, tender and disconnected. She thinks about the way he bled for her in Wonderland, the way she couldn’t thank him, couldn’t even ask him to come with her, even for a short amount of time. She wants to tell him that though. She wants to say _I love you, I love you, thank you for coming. Don’t go away. I’m afraid you’ll leave me too_ but what struggles out of her is something else entirely. 

“I’m not an oyster!” she says, one great intake of breath cutting off her sob. “I’m not an oyster and neither was my dad.”

“An oyster-what?” Hatter seems honestly confused. “I never said—Oh, Alice.” He lets out a breath. “I didn’t even think. Oyster. I didn’t think about it. I just thought they were pretty. God, I’m sorry.” This time she lets him slide his arms around her for just a moment. One brief, beautiful moment.

Then she steps away, because it would be too easy to stay. “I am so afraid,” she says.

“Alice…what’s this?” He’s got this look on his face, like he can’t understand what language she’s speaking.

She takes one more breath, a step toward that edge of the cliff. “You don’t introduce me to your friends,” she says. 

“I don’t have any friends,” he says. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Except for Gert, I guess, and he’s never around to introduce.”

“I mean those people that come up to you. On the street.” Gorgeous club kids, women with dark eyeshadow and pretty purses.

“Customers? Jesus, I don’t want to spend an extra second with them if I have to. I get enough of them at work.”

She takes another step. “I thought you were ashamed of me.”

His eyes darken from confusion to anger once more. “Now that’s the first time I’ve heard you sound stupid.”

Her voice rises. “Well, what was I to think?”

“Oh, I don’t know…you could have _asked_ me!”

“How?”

He spreads his arms wide and booms “I’m right here, love!”

It all seems so easy, how he says it, but all she can think of is her twisted tongue when she’s around him, the way she wants to speak and never can. “I can’t,” she says. She feels accused by the anger in his eyes. “Oh, Hatter. Don’t be mad at me. Please.”

The ill humor drains from him like dark water. “I’m not mad. Truly. I’m just trying to understand. I want things to get normal between us. They never really have been, have they?”

She shakes her head. “Not really.”

He sighs. “Right. Well, that’s probably my fault. I don’t want to…push you. I’m trying to catch up on how things are done here. Still running a bit late.”

She can’t stand to see him take the blame for this. “No, it’s not you. It’s not you at all. I just…have a hard time talking to you sometimes.”

“That’s silly. You can say anything you like to me.”

She shakes her head again, and feels like a little kid for it. “I really can’t.”

“Nonsense, Alice.”

“It’s so hard for me to get the words out. And I don’t want to say something that might make you mad.”

He quirks his lips. “Do you think I’ll turn you into a pumpkin if you do? You made me plenty mad in Wonderland. Didn’t seem to put me off at all, did it?”

“No,” she says, and then she takes that final step toward the edge. “I just don’t want you to get mad…and to leave.”

“Leave _you_? I’m not leaving.” He’s genuinely perplexed. “Who ever said I was?”

She feels tears on her face, so she looks at the floor, away from him. “You say that, but sometimes things happen. Sometimes things beyond your control. And I just…don’t think I could handle you leaving.” She uses her fingers to wipe her eyes, and then she jumps. She calls the words from deep inside her and they burst out of her in one swell. “I’m scared that we’ll break up and you’ll go back. I’m terrified of that.”

Suddenly his arms are around her, and his hand is on her jaw, forcing her to look up at him. His face is so close and there is none of that safe space between their bodies. She breathes in shallow sips. 

“Alice. I am not going to leave.” He grips her face with warm, steady pressure. “I need you to understand. I’m here with you now, and this is where I’m supposed to be. Leave? Hell, I can barely stand being away from you in the day.”

He sounds so sincere that she wants to believe, wants to believe so badly. He runs his thumb over her face, wipes the corner of her eye. “I didn’t leave you in Wonderland, did I? Followed you like a right creeper, didn’t I?”

That makes her laugh, and she rests her head on his shoulder. “And as for the talking, well…we’re just going to have to practice at that, I think. We’ll talk. Lots of talking. Lucky for me, I happen to excel at it.” He presses her body against his. “Sorry, love. You’re mine until you tell me to get lost. And even then you’re gonna have to beat me away from you.”

It sounds so idiotic, so real and right and so _him_ that she can’t do anything but believe him. She feels herself smile. “I mean, you can go back if you want to. I don’t want you to think that you can’t—“

“Hey. Missy. I’m not going back. Maybe on holiday with you., but not alone. Hear?”

She looks up at him, and his dark eyes are so sincere, his face as intense as the day he came to visit her and told her mother that his name was David. She remembers that feeling, what it was like to see him in her living room and know that he was there for good. The way she’d thrown her arms around him and told him how happy she was that he was there. She remembers and then she rocks up on her toes, leans her lips onto his and it’s like that first breathless kiss all over again. Except this time it’s different and there’s a stronger pulse between them, she can feel it rising from her legs and pooling in her stomach. He pulls her against him, harder this time. She puts her arms around his shoulders and squeezes. 

“I love you,” she whispers against his lips. “I’m so glad you came. Thank you.”

“Did you think I wouldn’t?” He kisses her again. “Well, I love you too, Alice. Thanks for saying it.”

Then he kisses her in a way that doesn’t feel safe, with his body rocking against hers. He kisses her harder than he ever has before, and she’s so happy and just a little bit scared but she trusts him so she lets it wash over her. One kiss goes on for ages, so long that she feels like she might lose her balance but his arms are still around her as he lifts her up just an inch or two, just enough for the toes of her flats to drag on the ground. 

She’s learning the rhythm now, and any lingering bits of fear have burned out between the two of them. She gives back as good as he gives her, matching each long stroke of his tongue with her own. She can feel his muscles underneath his shirt, and she feels his hands on her back, her waist, her arms. His hands are everywhere and they feel like fire. She presses herself against his body, and hears him inhale quickly. 

His hands are on her shoulders now; he’s trying to push her thick wool coat off of her arms. She feels his frustration but she’s too involved in the kiss to help him, the kiss that is growing stronger and stronger. Finally he yanks the thing down, hard, but one long lock of her hair is wrapped around a button and she yelps. 

“Oh my god,” he says, pulling back from her. “I’m so sorry.”

“Sh-- just shut up,” she says, wriggling out of the coat. He laughs. She leaps back into his arms. He takes a step or two back, tries to steady them, and then sits down heavily onto the bed.

The growing pulse makes her feel like she is burning all over, everywhere he puts his hands. She’s following it, pushing her hips against his until he gasps and drags his mouth from hers. She can feel his hesitation – she knows now that he didn’t want to push her. So silly. She’s annoyed that they’ve waited this long.

She loves the way his warm mouth tastes, not caring if he can tell that she’s unpracticed. He doesn’t seem to mind when she kisses his mouth hard enough that their teeth click. If anything it spurs him on. He rolls her over and covers her body with his.

She keeps trying to move things forward, but she feels him slowing down. He’s trying to slow them down but she won’t let it happen. The pulse between them is so strong now that it’s painful, and the only way that she can calm it is if she can feel his skin. She runs her fingers underneath his shirt, over his stomach. He takes in a breath. It’s good, but it’s not enough.

He manages to draw away from her and pull the shirt off of his body. While he’s there he looks down and she sees the hesitation. She pulls on the flippy fronts of his hair. “Come on, then,” she says, and then his hands are all over her and he has surrendered to it now, she hopes. 

It’s not perfect, and at first it’s a little awkward but she forces herself to laugh it off, to _trust him_ as he fiddles with the button of her jeans. She lets herself just feel it, feel his hands on her legs, her thighs. His lips on her torso and breast. Just when she feels like the pulse is going to carry her off, he is _right there_ and the movement stops between them. He’s just looking at her and she can see that he’s glad and scared and so is she. She moves her legs underneath him, to give him the space that he needs.

She throws her head back as he moves over her. He presses his cheek against her neck and prays for breath.

It starts slow but it doesn’t take him long to find the right timing. She moves herself underneath him, searching, searching. His arms are around her head, he whispers to her, things that she can’t understand but she gets the meaning. When she finds the right angle she gasps and she hears him answer.

It’s not perfect but it’s as close as she ever hopes to be. And with him, it’s as perfect as she ever wants to get.

After, he sleeps and so does she, exhausted and sated in one another’s arms. Alice sleeps like the dead, and she dreams only of beautiful things.

It’s hours later when she is awakened by the soft buzz of a phone. She looks through her purse but its not her phone – it must be his. She finds it in the pocket of his pants. It’s maybe a little nosey but she wants to make sure he’s not needed somewhere else.

The phone is flat and modern, and the screensaver is a picture of her at the coffee shop, taken during some unsuspecting moment. She smiles. The message lights up blue and it is from Gert.

_I’m counting this as vacation time, you wanker. You owe me._

She laughs as she slips the phone on the nightstand closest to Hatter. She finds her way back into the bed by the soft glow of his phone.

She tries not to wake him as she climbs back into the bed, but as soon as she pulls the covers over herself, she feels his hand on her waist, pulling her closer to him.

His voice is soft with sleep. “Thought you were taking off.”

“Liar,” she says, and kisses his forehead, his cheek.

“Who was it?”

“Gert. He says you owe him.”

“Mm,” he says. “I’d say I owe him a fruit basket.”

“Just a basket?” She kisses along his jaw, behind his ear.

“Maybe two. Three. How about a bushel?”

“That’s not showing very much gratitude to your boss.” She’s got her hand underneath the covers now. 

“I’m willing to buy the silly sod an orchard at this point.” 

She’s still smiling when he kisses her.

\-----

_In the quietest part of night, the air outside of the hotel stands almost still. There is just the faintest smudge of moonlight underneath the curtains. Just enough for him to see the fine line of her chin, the sweep of her lashes, the curve of her lip._

_He remembers thinking about her as a young boy in his bed. He thinks about the first time he’d heard of a girl named Alice, this girl who was destined to turn everything upside down in his world. He thinks about how true that is._

_He touches her chin and her lips but he no longer has to wonder. He pulls her closer to him and finally sleeps._

 

/end


End file.
